


The Friends of the Abased

by artsyspikedhair



Series: And Things Change For Better And For Worse [5]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arguing, Artist Grantaire, Confrontations, Food Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intersex Character, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 16:57:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5673595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artsyspikedhair/pseuds/artsyspikedhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire shows up to a meeting and discovers he has signed up for far more than he had bargained for.<br/>Enjolras spends some more time with his new friends and discovers some interesting habits of his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Friends of the Abased

The first class of physics was thankfully not all that hard. It was entirely conceptual, and the teacher talked on and on about how all of physics was motion. Grantaire and Eponine somehow were assigned seats next to each other, and so Grantaire spent all of class doodling in his notebook. Eponine spent all of class studying Grantaire's work, for she knew all of what they were learning. She, in spite of her innocence from being a year younger, knew all about physics from what her father had taught her back when she was about five. Mr. Thenardier had gotten his degree in physics, and, though at the time he had owned a seedy alcohol store, tried to teach Eponine and Azelma all he knew. Eponine had remembered a surprising amount, and had not expected all of class to be about concepts. She had thought the point of Honors was that it was for people who already understood basics, but she enjoyed watching Grantaire doodle. He drew bottles and heads of hair. He knew he was supposed to be taking notes, but he couldn't say he cared much. 

After physics class, Eponine had to go back to her crumby middle school that was a couple streets down. She told Grantaire she'd be back for the meeting, and if he didn't show up then she would save some food for his sorry ass. He told her he'd be there, probably with some surprises for her. Grantaire rather liked this Eponine, and thought maybe they could be friends. 

Grantaire's last class was health, but he didn't really feel like showing up, but he did anyway. He ripped off the bandage on his wrist while he was walking there. It had healed surprisingly quickly, but that was expected when the only thing sharp available in his house was a lousy pair of scissors. He spent the rest of Health class picking at the scab. It was bleeding again by the time he got on the bus. He thought about how ironic it was, that he was hurting himself in Health class, right in front of his Health teacher's eyes. People see what they want to, he supposed. He met up with Joly and the Eagle at the bus stop, and asked Joly for a band aid. Joly asked what for, and Grantaire made up a story about scraping his wrist against his locker. Eagle smiled knowingly, knowing Grantaire was lying but unsure why. His guess was Grantaire had gotten into a fight. Joly was more trusting than Eagle, and gave Grantaire the band aid, no questions asked. Grantaire told Joly and Eagle about the club, and they both jumped at the chance to join. Eagle was hoping the club would do something about police violence. Joly had hopes misogyny in the medical field would be protested. Grantaire immediately regretted telling them he thought it was a social justice club, because both of the other boys cared so much more than he did. They had something to fight against. Grantaire just fought against his father, and his fucked up mind. 

It wasn't that he hated himself. Grantaire didn't hate himself, he just liked pain and found that the world bored him so much more than it did others. 

  


During lunch Enjolras was so excited that he had friends who cared about the same things he did that he wasn't really thinking, but later in his Latin class he was going over what had happened during lunch in his mind and realized two things: Courfeyrac had mentioned starting a club, and Combeferre hadn't eaten anything. Enjolras figured he must have forgotten to bring lunch and was so caught up in conversation he didn't remember to buy lunch. Enjolras had a free block after Latin class, so he went to get the proper forms to start a club. It turned out Courfeyrac also had a free block that period, and may or may not have told everyone in their English class first period that they were starting a club called Friends of the Abased, even though that had happened before they had even met Enjolras. Enjolras just laughed, and the two drew bad looking posters together in silence for the rest of the period. 

The second day of high school was much like the first, only with slightly different classes. Enjolras met a rowdy in boxer in his public speaking class named Bahorel. Bahorel was a sophomore, but he had actually been held back twice in third grade, "because I didn't play well with others, the teachers said, which really meant I beat the shit out of kids who picked on other kids and wouldn't pay attention in classes I thought were a waste of time" Bahorel explained. This meant he was eighteen, and understood more about how to take care of tadpoles than anyone should ever know if they don't love frogs. Enjolras convince Bahorel to come the Friends of the Abased meeting, and Bahorel agreed to bring some food as well. 

Grantaire had Chinese and did not have English class, which he did not let upset him. Downing an entire bottle helped take the edge off his disappointment. Nothing else was all that important. Eponine was not in Physics that day, which scared Grantaire a bit, but he tried to not let anything shake him too much. He was still going to the meeting, whether Eponine showed up or not. Eagle refused to talk about anything else on the bus ride, to the dismay of Joly, who wanted to know if his trouble sleeping meant he was developing some form of cancer. The boy's hypochondria was odd for a fourteen year old, but he spent so much time researching illnesses because of his wish to become some type of doctor that it wasn't that odd. 

Enjolras failed to notice that, yet again, Combeferre hadn't eaten lunch. The kids had planned out what they first wished to talk about during the club meeting. Considering all four founding members were on the LGBTQIA spectrum, (Combeferre had admitted he was pansexual during history before the class had officially started, and Jehan told the clan at lunch the story of his birth, including the fact he had been diagnosed with Klinefelter Syndrome), that would be their first topic. 

Soon, after an entire day of waiting, the time had arrived. The club was allowed to meet in the courtyard, because they were not an official club yet and they figured there might be a bunch of people. Enjolras was nervous, because he knew he would be speaking first about his own experiences as a way to lead the discussion towards the upcoming Public Accommodations bill, which would prevent public establishments from discriminating against transgender and gender nonconforming individuals who frequented there. Courfeyrac and Jehan both offered to go instead, but Enjolras wouldn't let them. "It was my idea to have this topic, I want to be the one who shares my story with these people." Combeferre was oddly silent.

Joly and the Eagle were the first people to show up to the club, both coming out from a cancelled class. Next came Bahorel and Grantaire, both exchanging terrible puns with one another. Once Grantaire noticed Enjolras, he took a seat near a tree, far in the back, and pulled out his notebook. Bahorel took out what he said were homemade brownies. "I made them in Advanced Cooking." he bragged. Jehan and Eagle took two each, and both boys smiled when they realized they weren't the only ones being piggish. After about five minutes, Combeferre and Courfeyrac began to shush everyone. 

"Alright, this is the Friends of the Abased club. We're a club dedicated to social justice in all forms, including going to protests, writing letters, donating money to causes, and other forms of civilized mayhem. First we will go around and say our names, pronouns, and favorite-" Combeferre paused, unsure what favorite thing to have the group admit to. 

"Musical." Courfeyrac finished, then said "Okay, since I finished, I have to go first. I'm Courfeyrac, they/them/theirs, and my favorite musical is RENT." 

Jehan was sitting to the left, in an orange sundress with a purple head band on. "I'm Jehan, he/him/his, and my favorite musical is Fun Home, although I've never actually seen it. I just like the music." A few eyebrows went up at the pronouns, but nobody was rude to him. Jehan was pleased by the reaction. 

Eagle was sitting next to him. "I'm Eagle, no that's not my real name but the day you learn what my real name is is the day it's printed on my death certificate." Eagle glared mockingly. 

Suddenly a girl with an astonishingly recent black eye came out of the hallway through the door into the courtyard. "This Friends of the Abased?" she asked. 

"That's us!" Joly said cheerfully, obviously hoping he might be allowed to attend to her black eye. This combined two things he loved, medicine and pretty girls, though Eponine was rather short and skinny, and not the prettiest. Nonetheless, Joly had a small crush on her. Eponine sat down next to Grantaire.

"Anyway, I use he/him/his, and I like Assassins." Eagle said. 

Grantaire pulled out a water bottle from his backpack. "It doesn't have water in it." he muttered to Eponine, before asking more seriously, "So what happened to you?" 

"I had to run errands for my dad, and let's just say his clients aren't exactly the nicest, especially not when they're dealing with a teenage girl who wants money from them and won't let the jerks pay in sex. So why are you giving the stuff to me? Not that I don't want it." She whispered to him, while Bahorel was stating his name, pronouns, and love of Assassins as well as Rocky Horror Picture Show. 

"I told you I'd surprise you. What, you didn't believe in me? Besides, I already had two. My dad keeps them in the cleaning closet because he thinks my mom won't look there. "

"Guess we both lucked out in the father department." 

"Ahem, kid in the green hoodie, it's your turn." Enjolras said, it coming out meaner than he'd hope. 

"Name's R or Grantaire. I use he/him/his or ey/em/eirs. I've never seen any musicals but I like the music from Wicked." 

Eponine went next. "I'm Eponine. She/her/hers. I don't give a fuck about musicals, I'm here for the brownies and enthusiasm." She said this all deadpan, but Eagle, Joly, Bahorel, Jehan, Grantaire, and Courfeyrac all burst out laughing. "Nice to know y'all have a decent sense of humor." She quipped, and then walked over to grab about three brownies in one hand. She handed one of them over to Grantaire. 

"All right, my name's Enjolras, he/him/his, and I also like Rocky Horror Picture show and Wicked." Enjolras started, "Now that we all know each other, it's time to get down to business." Courfeyrac burst out with that song from Mulan, and Combeferre joined in, smiling, until Enjolras sent a soul chilling glare over to them. Grantaire decided his best bet at getting attention was to get one of those glares sent his way.

"We are going to try to contact the senators about the upcoming Public Accommodations bill. For those who don't know, this a bill that will allow transgender people to go into public without fearing harassment. This bill is important to me personally because, as you can probably tell from my appearance, I am a trans guy, and I have faced harassment both in public places and in my own home. Now, I figure we should pen letters to the governors, letting them know that an actual vote will ensure many lives will be saved. Jehan has made packets of statistics we can use, and addresses." 

Grantaire decided now was time to make a move, he was slightly drunk and therefore more courageous than usual. "What will this change? Just because there's a law doesn't meant those assholes will follow it. You really think having a group of high school kids write letters will make congresspeople give a shit about you. Most of us can't vote, and that means to the government, we do not matter. You can't change the world, Everest." Grantaire used Enjolras' first name to make a point, and point did he make. Enjolras glared at him, and it felt like the glare of the sun. But Grantaire thrived off attention. 

Enjolras did not recognize this guy, and he felt angry just listening the boy spout out pessimistic bullshit. He reminded Enjolras of his younger, seventh grade self. He didn't know what to say, so he said simply, "Changing the law means when people do break it, we can prosecute them. We will have more protection than before. And the government is made to protect all its people, not just those over a certain age. We will be able to vote soon, and senators will know that, and then we can use their hope to win." 

Grantaire was suddenly not in the mood to fight, so he just grabbed a piece of paper from his sketchbook and began writing a letter to the senator, using as flowery and confusing language as possible to impress or aggravate this Enjolras, he was unsure which reaction he longed for more. 

Grantaire left with Joly and Eagle, who both said to him afterwards, "So that's Enjolras, huh?" 

And Grantaire did not know what else to do but smile goofy and say "Yeah, that's him." 


End file.
